Previously: Deidre becomes acquainted with the Dante Family. Aleigha sneaks his way on the boat in the Ghytto.
The entire time I'm looking at Thankful's red cheeks. Her eyes are puffy, whimpering in the car. I asked her did she want to talk. She told me, she had a cold because of the change in the air. She thinks I'm simple-minded.
By the time the car stopped, we parked on the ground to a large Villa. How did we even get this far? I should have been paying attention, the ride was so long and smooth I must have fallen asleep.
An arch driveway, fenced in Villa. It sits on a slope, a wide two-story Villa. Spiral-like stairs leading up the slope. Tomas stops the car and takes the keys out of the ignition. He briefly turns to me, "Put your back against the door."
"Why"
"Ask me why again, after that ask yourself why the fuck you asked." He put the gun in my face again. He's working my nerves.
"Tomas, I can tie him up." Chimes Thankful. She mutters under her breath how extra he's being.
He opens the back door; the sensation of cold metal crossed my skin. I hear a click; I narrow my gaze. Thankful hops out the car, "I fucking said I would do it!"
"Shut up!" he orders, I'm irritated beyond words. Who does he think he is talking to his sister like that? "Go in the house! Take care of the dogs!"
"Who the fuck are you talking to her like that?" I snarl, he pulls the cuffs, pulling me out of the car and yanking me down so my head beats against the concrete driveway. "Bitch!"
"That'll keep your fucking mouth closed." He turns me over and hoists me up as best he can. I'm a six feet four-man, he can't handle me. "Weak ass..." I mutter. Pushing me forward, he shuts the door to the car. Thankful is still standing on the side with her fist clenched. "You still here?" he spits. "Go in the fucking house." The last part was in complete Spanish.
Thankful paces slowly to the villa, which turns into a jog.
Inside the villa, you walk into a set of brown stairs. To the left is a spacious kitchen and to the right is a spacious living room with a fireplace and tall bookshelves beside it. There's a doorway connected to the living room that leads outside or other. "Where am I going to put you?"
To bed, maybe? "I think I'll put you with the dogs. How about that?"
"Dogs?" Pitbulls, fucking tiny vicious cocaine-driven pups. We call them chihuahua. Perhaps a rottweiler or some vicious ball of fur on steroids. "Werewolves."
"Fuck—everything. Really? Where do you even get werewolves?"
"Family secret."
I'll ignore that for now. "Where are we?"
"Cabo San Lucas." Gripping hold of the cuffs he guides me to the living room and throws me on the couch. "You're going to be here awhile. So, my sister Thankful is a lytch."
Like Godelieve? "What exactly is that?"
"A lytch is Jesus Christ." He sits in the couch adjacent to me. I shift in the sofa to sit up straight. "lytches come into this world to feed off life. To put it simply, they have unfinished business. My sister is fucking dead."
"She was here! She's not dead. Maybe she came back for family, you mentioned your mother, where is she?"
He bats an eye my way, "Don't talk about my mama. A nigga should know better."
"Nigga fuck you! You expect a bitch to bow to you after you jack his car, put a gun in his face, and you think I'm a friend. You got confusion... which is an illness."
Tomas scoffs, "Smart ass. But I'll show you what I mean and apologize later." He gets up and steps to me, "Turn around so I can remove the cuffs."
I want to kick him, but these cuffs are cutting my skin. I turn around so he can take off the cuffs. "Come with me." He heads for the stairs, I'm reluctant to follow, Tomas starts beckoning like some obedient animal. I get up and follow, stop for a minute at the sound of a low growl. "werewolves," he says as if that shit is normal.
At the top of the stairs, we go down a corridor aligned with one door to the right, across from it an open door with art supply and canvas with a cloth draped over them. Ahead is a double door. "through here," he says. I peek in the art room, to the east walls is a big painting that screams Dorian Gray.
An elegant painting of a woman dressed in yellow. Her brown hair spiraled into a ponytail. The hem is feathered, it hugs her body showing her hourglass figure. What makes the painting curious is that it has no face. At least no defined features to call it a face. In black dripping ink, she's smiling. Her eyes are black dripping vertical lines. The smile is a semi-circle.
What the fuck is that?
As she's standing in the dress, she's holding a bouquet of yellow flowers. She's in front of a brown and yellow brick wall. "Tomas," I call. "Who's this woman?"
He stops to look back at me. "Oh. That's La Dama Falsa." He stands by my side explaining, "She's... not a person. Which is why we're going in the room."
He continues into the double doors. I meet him there, it's a room void of color. Against the back wall is a coffin. "Dia de los Muertos is the day of dead. We celebrate to remember the lost." He flips on a light that clearly reveals a coffin with see-through glass over the body. "Is it Snow White?"
"This is my mama. As I said, again, my sister is dead. However, I put my mother's soul in her dead body." Please don't start any weird shit. I can feel some weird shit. "My mama is La Dama Falsa."
"I'm not understanding a damn thing," I whisper, why am I here? "I'll tell you. I brought you here to see my project from the start. I'm using my sister for the hold. Next I need the blood and vampires have a gene."
"Fuck you."
Tomas circles around me, "vampires have an immortal gene. Bone marrow no longer works because the stomach is no longer there. But vampire genes can surround healthy human blood cells to keep parts of the body from dying. Isn't that interesting?"
"No"
"Really?" he smirks. "Because I find your blood," he pulls out a needle from his back pocket. "very interesting."